Delray Beach To Pick Up Tab For Filling In Condo`s Sinkhole

January 6, 1993|By STEPHANIE ZIMMERMANN, Staff Writer

DELRAY BEACH -- City officials agreed on Tuesday not to ask residents to pay to fill in a huge sinkhole at the Tropic Harbor Condominium after both sides admitted they do not know whose leaky storm sewer caused the problem.

In doing so, city commissioners are taking on an estimated $198,000 project to replace the storm sewer and fix a 12- by 5-foot sinkhole and other problems in the condominium parking lot and driveways.

City Manager David Harden had said the residents should pay at least one- third of the cost because discharge from their air-conditioning system is at least partly to blame for the damage.

A handful of condominium owners applauded the decision. ``I could almost cry, I`m so happy,`` said Shirley Ramsey, president of the condominium association.

The 224-unit condominium development lies between Tropic Isle Harbor and Spanish Trail on the city`s south side.

Parts of the pavement have been collapsing since September 1991, Ramsey said. But things really got bad last summer, when two residents` cars had to be pushed out after catching a wheel in the sinkhole.

Residents have complained that emergency and waste pickup vehicles cannot get through.

Both sides admit, however, that they still do not know who built the aluminum pipe drainage system. Neither the developer who built Tropic Harbor in 1968 nor the village has any record of the work -- or any document showing who owns the finished product.

Samuel Navon, the residents` attorney, argued on Tuesday that the city in the past had treated the system as a public entity. Neighboring Serena Vista, built four years after Tropic Harbor, was told by the city to hook into the system.

``It seems odd to me that a portion of the system is private and a portion of the system is public,`` Navon said.

Commissioner Armand Mouw agreed.

``If we`re going to put those kind of restrictions on it, I think we bought it,`` Mouw said.

COMMISSION ACTION

In other action on Tuesday, Delray Beach city commissioners:

-- Refused to lift its long-established ban against billboards to allow the Boys and Girls Club of Palm Beach County Inc. to erect six billboards along Interstate 95. However, commissioners said the city will give a financial contribution to start a South County Boys and Girls Club at the Catherine Strong Center.